Hey everyone, I just recently finished up my first homemade board (couldn’t have done it without these archives!) and all in all it went well. I shaped and glassed it myself and it seemed fine but then when I took it out surfing I found out that the glass dinged easier than most boards and didn’t feel as stiff. I used two layers of 6oz cloth on the top and one layer of 6oz on the bottom, did a hotcoat and gloss. I couldn’t figure out why it came out weaker, then I realised that the hardener I was using might not have been as high quality as a glasser would normally use (I bought it from home depot). All the other materials for glassing I bought from a local shaper except the hardener, could this be my problem? Thanks a ton!
Did you glass epoxy or poly? If it was epoxy you should let it cure for a couple of weeks.
I used the poly for this one, I hope I didn’t jump the gun riding it seeing as I had just finished glassing it like 3 days earlier…
Hi Argus,
When you say “hardener”, you mean catalyst right?
Cheers,
Rio
yes by hardener I do mean catalyst, don’t worry folks I wasn’t talking about viagra…
Pressures. Not fully cured layup. Recalling everything I’ve heard but nothing I’ve read… wait two weeks minimum. two months optimum. (yeah right on both) The least amount of time I’ve waited after lam is… let’s see… lam/hotcoat same day, sand next day, surfed hour after sanding. Basically, for the boards I’ve made to ride myself they get a few days at most. Pressure? Invariably. Anything for me gets a tail patch before it hits the water. I do find though, that as I get better at glassing (chemically and procedurally) they harden up considerably faster/better.
Caveat… clark foam… some of my early ones were complete hack from the deck jobbers when I wanted to loose some thickness… but yeah, whatever.
Your glass is probably fine and as strong as it should be… lot of factors really… don’t… uhh… stress.
randy
haha word thanks for the reassurance Randy, next time i’ll definately wait a while though, I had no idea it took so long to cure fully.